


That Cold Stone

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Post-Series, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuvira spends a lot of time thinking about Korra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Cold Stone

Kuvira thought about Korra all the time. She had thought about Korra before she knew the Avatar’s name. She had thought about Korra when she had first heard the radio plays after she joined the Fire Ferrets. Kuvira had wanted to go to Republic City to see her, but she had never had the chance, and then Korra was no longer playing in the games because she had Avatar things to do, the world to put in balance.

And she thought about Korra now as she sat cross-legged on the floor of her cell. She kept it neat and tidy in case anyone came to visit, but few ever did. Bending forward, she reached out towards the space in front of her until her face was cupped in the curve of her legs, and the stretched burned through her thighs. 

She thought about Korra, standing in front of the bright pink beam of energy that sought to destroy her as she had destroyed so many others. 

Closing her eyes, Kuvira pressed her palms against the floor of her cell and pulled herself into a simple handstand, counting the seconds of her breath as she slowly exhaled and lowered her legs until they split into a trembling horizon, the stretch a thread of tension strung through her.

It would have been different, she thought, as she tightened her core and lowered her legs so they settled on the ground. For a long time she had imagined sparring with Avatar Korra, had watched from a distance when she had practiced her crude metal bending with Suyin’s sons, even though Kuvira was just as good as them, could challenge the Avatar just as much.

She bowed her head, her eyes closed.

It was difficult to reconcile—Suyin treating her as a daughter and not at the same time. Part of the family, but not always—not when it mattered. 

Then there had been Korra, teaching Opal some simple airbending techniques, spiraling under the gazebo like leaves falling from the trees, taken by the wind. It had looked they had been dancing—they had been graceful, they had been beautiful—and Kuvira could dance, had learned under Suyin, the best of them all—and you could dance with metal—it didn’t have to be lobbed against an enemy or plated to your body like armor, and yet—

Her brows knit together and she vaulted to her feet, pretending she sparred with someone, going through the motions until her heart beat in her chest.

She had fought with the Avatar, when Korra was sick and still obviously recovering her full strength—when she had been troubled and to this moment she wondered what she had seen to allow Kuvira to so thoroughly get the upper hand.

If the Avatar could not mend the damage that had been done, if she chose instead to disappear as her forbear had once disappeared for a hundred years, then what else could she do but step forward and unite the Earth Kingdom that had been so broken, so abused for years and years and years and where was the Avatar? Where was she?

Kuvira had felt a weightlessness she had not known before, dancing light on the toes of her feet, laughing when she had missed, as she had fought—not sparred or danced—with Avatar Korra, who had abandoned them, had betrayed the trust the nations put in the Avatar, and what was the earth kingdom but part of that?

Is that the best you can do? Is that all you have to throw at me? I expected a challenge—not this.

For she had proven that they did not need the Avatar’s strength and power—that they had it in themselves.

When she had thought that the Avatar’s strength was her prowess in the elements instead of in her mercy.

She collapsed on the simple cot, exhausted, though her strength was hardly spent.

She had been imprisoned for only a few weeks, and already time stretched inexorably before her. Already her mind fretted like a caged animal and she was caged behind these walls that could not be bent—and would she bend them if she could or would she serve her time as she had promised?

Suyin’s voice whispered in her ears—you’ll pay for everything you’ve done. 

But she knew that there was no payment she could render. There was nothing to be done. There were no take-backs, no second chances no matter what the Avatar said.

The Avatar had said that she had seen a lot of herself in Kuvira, and Kuvira had been sure that they were nothing alike, but Korra had proven her wrong.

But she could not see the Avatar in herself—not anymore.

Folding her elbows over her eyes, she stretched out on her cot, and thought about Korra.


End file.
